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<title>How to Care for Your Sharpshooter by MusicandDancingThroughLife</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24123898">How to Care for Your Sharpshooter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicandDancingThroughLife/pseuds/MusicandDancingThroughLife'>MusicandDancingThroughLife</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>How to Care for Your Sharpshooter [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Voltron: Legendary Defender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Langst, Shklance if you squint i guess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:54:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>850</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24123898</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicandDancingThroughLife/pseuds/MusicandDancingThroughLife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As always, Lance gives the team everything, and they realize how they failed to care for him in return.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>How to Care for Your Sharpshooter [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>199</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>How to Care for Your Sharpshooter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lance could feel his teammates’ concern focused on him, but he ignored it as best he could. With the pain shooting through his head and his ribs and sweeping out from his knee, he had plenty of distractions to choose from. He focused on the bastard who had slashed through his chest and thought he could still get away with trying to hurt his friends.</p>
<p>“Lance, you can’t even stand!” He knew that Pidge was trying to sound angry, but really? All she sounded like was a scared little kid and Lance hated it. Pidge was too brave and strong to still sound like a kid, she’d been through too much. He aimed, fired. Turned as quickly as he could, though a yelp of pain still escaped, his ribs protesting the sharp movement. He could see Hunk jolt at the sound, turn away from his own target to check on Lance. Lance grit his teeth and shot, once, twice. Taking out his own opponent and Hunk’s at the same time. Five to go.</p>
<p>He tried to stand, straighten himself. Doing so would absolutely put pressure on his injured leg, but it might relieve the pain from his ribs and chest. He screamed when he collapsed again, gaining the attention of most of the soldiers still standing, still fighting with his friends. Despite the pain banging against his skull, his eyes darted around, taking in the scene in front of him.</p>
<p>Pidge was down. Her leg was twisted unnaturally, sweat beading on her face and mixing with her silent tears, jaw clenched tightly. Hunk was moving towards him, cautiously, but still with purpose. Keith and Shiro were distracted by the rest of them, trying hard to get to them, but still fighting off their own soldiers. Lance managed to clench his muscles, blinking fast to clear the tears out of his eyes so he could assist them. Before he could do the same for Allura, he felt fresh pain in his stomach. The pain in his sparked, and he felt himself list forward, the darkness he had been fighting finally rushing in to meet him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Paladins were upset. Coran could understand this. He wasn’t too happy, himself, but at least they had caught this before it became even more of a problem. They had quickly moved the boy into a healing pod after seeing the extent of his injuries for themselves, but after pulling up the scans of his vitals, Coran had quickly realized that there were underlying issues none of them had been aware of. From the looks of the scans, Lance hadn’t been eating enough. He had overworked his body. He hadn’t been getting the proper amounts of sleep needed to maintain good health. Consulting the training logs had only confirmed this. Lance had been working himself to death. None knew if this was out of some desperation to improve, to prove himself, to impress. Hunk and Pidge had suggested it might have been some form of distraction. Keith and Shiro had simply looked worried, devastated, even, particularly when they realized that a member of their own team had been suffering to such a degree and hadn’t thought to trust anyone with that burden. </p>
<p>Shiro blamed himself. He should’ve been paying closer attention to every member of his team. </p>
<p>Keith blamed himself. He and Lance had been growing closer as friends, and surely a friend would’ve seen the warning signs? Would’ve known how to help? Hell, at the very least he could have asked!</p>
<p>Hunk blamed himself. As Lance’s best and longest friend, he should’ve known better than any of the others how much Lance would’ve been struggling, how lonely and homesick he would’ve felt. And not just for his family on Earth. </p>
<p>Even Pidge blamed herself. If she hadn’t been so focused on her own problems, wouldn’t she have been able to see how those around her were hurting? Why couldn’t she just look up from a damn screen every once in a while?</p>
<p>Coran could see how the paladins regretted, how upset they were to find that their friend, one of their own, had been hurt so deeply. He glanced at Allura. She had also grown closer to the paladins since the lion switch, particularly Lance, and he could see the sadness and tears welling in her eyes. Still, determination shown in her face when she stepped forward and set a comforting hand on Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro glanced back at her, covering her hand with his own. He smiled, drew a deep, steadying breath. </p>
<p>“We’re going to make sure he knows he never has to do that to himself,” Shiro looked approvingly at his paladins, his team, his family. They had been brought together by chance, by fate. By their beautiful, blue paladin. They were in this together and they would always be there for one of their own. Keith joined Shiro as he moved towards Lance’s pod, both keeping a close watch on the still, silent, normally so vibrant and bright boy. They would especially be there for one who meant so much to them.</p>
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